World’s Soil Museum Lit With LED

Earth’s Living Skin

Soil is the Earth’s living skin and when thought of that way, is a fascinating subject. It provides anchorage for roots and holds water and nutrients long enough for plants and micro-organisms to make use of it. In fact, most of the land’s biodiversity lives in the soil, not above ground. Without soils the Earth’s landscape would be as barren as Mars.

On April 7th 2014, the official opening of the World Soil Museum will take place. This new museum is located at the research campus of Wageningen University (The Best University of the Netherlands). In this museum, a wide variety of soil types from all around the globe will be on display. In addition, visitors can learn about the role of different soils in life and ecosystems in the world.

How Do You Light Brown?

Something so vital to our existence must be displayed in a careful way. The very nature of the material; dark coloured with textures ranging from granules to soft mud, would require very precise lighting for the public to be able to discern the differences in soil type and construction.

Lighting designer Bob van der Klaauw from Lichtpunt Theatertechniek (Groningen, The Netherlands) has turned the wide variety of available beam angels of the Ultima Gallery series from CLS into a creative and visually attractive lighting concept for this particular application. Selecting an elliptical lens (12×46°) and having it placed vertically in the fixture, results in an elongated and narrow beam, which accentuates the collection of monoliths in a most beautiful manner. What could have been uninteresting ‘lumps of soil’, have been elevated to showcase objects of immense interest.

The Ultima series is distinguished by a remarkably low glare ratio (UGR < 13). By selecting a black finish, the designer has ensured that the chance of any glare when viewed from the side is limited even further, resulting in perfect object lighting without any annoying glare caused by the LED light source.

By Julie Allen

28 Mar